Red Sox, Junichi Tazawa Avoid Arbitration

While the majority of the 156 players that filed for salary arbitration last week have agreed to terms with their teams, either on a one-year deal for 2016 or on an extension, the cases of 30 players remain unresolved. You can track the status of each case using MLBTR’s 2016 Arbitration Tracker, and we’ll keep track of all of today’s smaller deals to avoid arbitration in this post (all referenced projections via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)…

The Red Sox and right-hander Junichi Tazawa have avoided arbitration by coming to terms on a one-year, $3.375MM contract, tweets Jon Heyman. Tazawa, whose salary lines up nearly perfectly with Swartz’s $3.3MM projection, had filed for a$4.15MM salary, while the team countered at $2.7MM. His eventual salary falls just $25K shy of the midpoint between those two sums. Tazawa, who will be a free agent next winter, will join right-handers Carson Smith and Koji Uehara in setting up for newly acquired closer Craig Kimbrel. The Japanese righty struggled a bit in 2015 due to an abnormally low strand rate, but he’s been largely excellent since signing with the Red Sox back in 2008. Since establishing himself as a key piece of the Boston ’pen back in 2012, Tazawa has a 3.00 ERA with 9.1 K/9 against 1.8 BB/9 in 234 innings of relief.

No reason for Boston to rush that decision. They’d still have Kimbrel and Smith locked up for a couple more years. And the volatility of relievers makes extensions a risky move. I know Tazawa has been good for multiple, consecutive seasons, but I’d rather play out half the season or all of it and then try to work an extension.

He’s been a proven shutout reliever for the Sox over the last few years, those are hard to come by. He loves Boston and the fans love him. Hope they don’t make the same mistake they did with Miller if he gets traded and not resigned later. Taz is young enough to get extended, who knows how long Uehara will keep going. Plus, he’s a FA after the season too.